With the development of wireless communications technologies and the increasing popularization and rapid growth of wireless-fidelity (WIFI) devices, applications of wireless local area networks (WLAN) develop rapidly. The deployment and development of multiple types of WLANs, including WLANs for individuals and families, for offices of enterprise zones, and for educational and medical institutions, expand the demand for basic wireless networks, and also bring in the demand for WLAN services and the demand for improvement of user experience. However, some new problems are also caused, and particularly, widespread use of incompatible wireless devices or wireless devices with poor compatibility seriously interferes with the WLAN environment. Interference affects throughput between a wireless access point and a client, and even causes interruption of a client service. When the interference affects a normal service in the WLAN environment, it becomes exceedingly important to avoid and reduce the impact of the interference as soon as possible by obtaining location information of an interfering device rapidly and accurately. To locate interference, interference source information needs to be acquired at multiple detection points, so as to determine the location of the interference using a certain method. After interfering signals are detected at multiple detection points, how to determine that the interfering signals detected at the multiple detection points are sent by a same interference source is a key problem that needs to be solved by a wireless location technology.
In an existing technology for detecting and identifying a same interference source using multiple access point devices, after an interference source sends an interfering signal, each access point device receives, collects, and analyzes the interfering signal. Various types of characteristic information obtained after the signal is analyzed are referred to as a pseudo media access control (MAC) address (PMAC). The PMAC includes spectrum information and some other information, where the spectrum information includes a central frequency, a bandwidth, a pulse period, and the like, and other information includes a device identity, a simulation characteristic, and the like. The device identity cannot be acquired until data is decoded. Then, each access point device reports PMAC data of an interference source to a wireless access controller (AC), and the wireless controller compares the PMAC data according to a preset rule, and groups similar PMAC data into one cluster. Multiple groups of PMAC data reported in a period of time are compared, and after cluster combination or segmentation, PMAC data of each cluster may be finally identified as coming from a same interference source.
The foregoing method for identifying a same interference source solves, to some extent, the problem of identifying an interference source; however, the foregoing method also has some problems. In one aspect, PMAC generation is complex, which not only needs spectrum analysis, but also needs data decoding, and the like, resulting in a high requirement for a detection device; and in the other aspect, because the wireless environment is complex, it is difficult to ensure the accuracy of the PMAC generated according to spectrum information.